Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl is the official soundtrack album from the film of the same name. The album was released on July 22, 2003, by Walt Disney Records, and contains selections of music from the film score. The music of the film and this album are credited to composer Klaus Badelt and producer Hans Zimmer. Track listing Production Composer Alan Silvestri was originally hired to write the score for The Curse of the Black Pearl, having collaborated with director Gore Verbinski on Mouse Hunt and The Mexican. However, due to creative differences between the producer Jerry Bruckheimer and him, Silvestri left the project before recording any material. Verbinski and Bruckheimer decided to go with Hans Zimmer's team instead, who were frequent collaborators of their productions. Verbinski asked Hans Zimmer, with whom he had worked on The Ring, to step in. Zimmer declined to do the bulk of the composing, as he was busy scoring The Last Samurai, a project during which he claimed he had promised not to take any other assignments. As a result, he referred Verbinski to Klaus Badelt, a relatively new composer who had been a part of Remote Control Productions (known as Media Ventures at the time) for three years. Zimmer however ended up collaborating with Badelt to write most of the score's primary themes. Zimmer said he wrote most of the tunes in the space of one night, and then recorded them in an all-synthesized demo credited to him. This demo presents three of the score's themes and motifs, concluding with an early version of "He's A Pirate" which differs from the final cue and includes a development of a melody Zimmer wrote for the score to Drop Zone. Since the schedule was very tight and the music was needed for the film in three weeks, seven other composers — Ramin Djawadi, James Dooley, Nick Glennie-Smith, Steve Jablonsky, Blake Neely, James McKee Smith, and Geoff Zanelli — were called upon to help orchestrate the music and write additional cues. The resulting score was recorded with a group of musicians, credited as the Hollywood Studio Symphony, over the course of four days. The short time frame demanded the use of a different recording studio for each session. The Metro Voices, a male choir, was recorded in London and added to the finished recordings. The soundtrack album, consisting of 43 minutes